Optima Batteries SEMA 2015 Build

Look at what arrived at my shop today... This van has done some traveling in its short life. It was most of the way across the country at Ujoint just a few weeks ago, then SMB west now in Oregon before going to SoCal then on to Vegas for SEMA.

I spent a couple hours gutting the interior and getting ready for a frenzy of measuring-thinking-Solidworks over the weekend.

The Super Duty truck mirrors will probably be the first item to get crossed off the list. First thing in the morning I'll be doing the finish work on the plastics.

Big shout out to Ujoint too! The 4x4 conversion looks awesome! So much attention to detail!

SO BRIGHT INSIDE! Polar opposite of the cargo body. care to share what you're thinking for housing that HVAC unit? i've got, what i assume, to be basically the same thing (2005) but with a bloody massive cage around it, and i've recently been pondering how to utilize all the dead space.
Think Optima will notice if you throw the Cummins into it? You've made the swap look oil-change-easy and it's always easier to seek forgiveness rather than permission.
it might just result in a dozen orders for ram-vans....#mgmetalworksshareholder

Joking aside I have an 8-passenger and it was horribly hot until heavily tinted. 10% on everything from the b-pillars back and 25% on the front side windows (which is the legal limit for Texas forward of the b-pillars). Made a HUGE difference, even with the rear A/C.

Damn you summer heat!!! It has been a race against rising temperatures the last couple of days. The material I'm using for shaping/texturing the plastics on the Super Duty truck mirrors is very finicky when the temps are high so I'm having to work around the heat of the day (meaning early mornings and late evenings). I'm ready for texturing at least...which is the 2nd to last step before reassembling the mirrors and mounting them on the van.

To give you an idea...it took a full day's work to go from this:

To this:

Lots of design work going on and piles of parts being ordered. I LOVE this stuff!!!!